Further Reading

Internet users nationwide are clamoring for fiber, as well, hoping it can free them from slower DSL service or the dreaded cable companies. But not everyone wants fiber, because, when it comes to voice calls, the newer technology doesn’t have all the benefits of the old copper phone network. In particular, fiber doesn’t conduct electricity, where copper does. That means when your power goes out, copper landlines might keep working for days or weeks by drawing electricity over the lines, while a phone that relies on fiber will only last as long as its battery. That's up to eight hours for Verizon’s most widely available backup system.

Thus, while many customers practically beg for fiber, others—particularly those who have suffered through long power outages—want Verizon to keep maintaining the old copper lines. But Verizon continues pressuring customers to switch, and it’s getting harder to say no.

“Verizon's efforts to force people off copper in my area of Rhode Island rise to the level of harassment,” Verizon customer Karen Anne Kolling of North Kingstown, Rhode Island, told Ars.

Kolling is one of numerous Verizon customers who got in touch with Ars in response to articles on the in-progress shutoff of the traditional telephone network. “They have contacted me at least 10 to 20 times in the last year, including showing up unannounced on my doorstep to tell me they were switching me to FiOS," Kolling said. "So far I have managed to save my landline in this area, which is subject to power failures from hurricanes.”

Verizon spokesperson John Bonomo told Ars in an e-mail, "We do not 'show up unannounced' to people’s homes. We have to install equipment in customers’ homes, and then very likely we need to do additional work inside the home."

Verizon has 4.9 million residential landline customers still on copper networks, with 5.5 million getting voice service over fiber. Public interest groups and consumers have accused Verizon of letting copper networks deteriorate and using their degraded status to push fiber upgrades. Verizon made $31.5 billion in revenue last quarter along with $4.3 billion in profit. But its wireline business has struggled, with the fiber-based FiOS products propping it up. Total wireline revenue in Q2 2014 was $9.8 billion, up 0.3 percent, the first year-over-year increase in more than seven years. FiOS was the main driver of growth, with revenue increasing 14 percent over the previous year, hitting $3.1 billion.

Verizon cut investment in its wireline business—it had 80,600 wireline employees as of June 30, 2014, down from 84,700 in 2013, 88,600 in 2012, and 93,200 in 2011. Verizon also reduced capital expenditures from $2.95 billion in the six months ending June 30, 2013 to $2.73 billion in the six months ending June 30, 2014.

“They told me if my copper-based landline needs repair, they will not repair it. So I'll have no choice but to switch to FIOS or Cox, both of which have limited time battery backup in the event of power failures,” said Kolling, a longtime software engineer who worked for Xerox PARC, Digital, and Adobe.

Despite Verizon’s warnings, Kolling’s copper lines have continued to work. “I probably have received at least 15 phone calls over the past year or so, and usually they start out with some statement like, ‘due to many problems with your phone service, we are switching you to FIOS,’” Kolling said. “I asked one of these callers what all these problems were, and she found one: eight years ago, in 2006, an outside wire came down and needed to be reattached.”

Kolling said she went up the food chain and was promised by a Verizon executive that residents will receive 30 days' notice if Verizon decides to completely turn off copper-based landline service where she lives. “I hope this is correct, so I have been ignoring them ever since,” she said.

Across the country, Verizon customers tell the same story

Kolling’s story is nearly identical to ones told by Verizon customers from the East Coast to California. Besides the ones who spoke with Ars, others have registered their frustrations in official government proceedings. In May, Public Knowledge and 11 other public interest groups asked the FCC to investigate these complaints and consider enforcement actions. (The groups' letter described complaints about AT&T and Frontier, but the large majority of complaints were directed at Verizon.) The FCC hasn't taken any action in response.

David Berg of Bethesda, Maryland, has managed to keep his copper landlines, though not without hassle. "Verizon appears to be trying hard to get rid of land lines in my area," he told Ars. "They most recently let our landline stay broken for roughly a month while they claimed to be working on an 'area problem.' Actually, the problem with our line was inside the house. Surprise! They also claimed to have fixed it when I called them repeatedly (from my cell phone) to tell them it still wasn’t working properly."

For that month in late spring, Berg said his landline "worked with varying degrees of noise and diminished sound quality. Most of the time, you couldn’t really hear over the hum and other noises and had to give up until later."

“I told them that I never want my copper to be removed, ever.”

Verizon tried to convince him to switch to fiber, but Berg refused. "They finally sent a technician to fix it," he said. "He knocked on the door to say that it was working perfectly well. I invited him in to see that it was not. He worked on it for a couple of hours inside the house and finally got it working without a strong hum, pops, and hisses."

The fix was just in time, because "we’ve had at least three [power] outages this summer, and the copper-based landline worked through them all," Berg said.

Mike Keys of Huntington, New York, has similarly resisted Verizon’s attempts to push him onto fiber. Keys uses FiOS for Internet and TV, but also has three traditional landlines on the copper network, in part because he runs a small computer consulting business and provides phone support to customers from his home. When Keys had FiOS installed, he insisted that Verizon let him also keep the copper phone lines.

“I have two sick people in the house,” Keys said. “Going through Hurricane Sandy, I had no power for 12 days, and I was the only one on the block who had phone service. Everyone else switched to the cable company or FiOS. At the beginning of my block, a tree fell on the lines, and this is interesting, it took out the electricity, it took out cable TV, it took out FiOS, but it did not bring down the copper cable.”

A year or so ago, Keys came home to find that two of his phone lines had been shut off, he said. "Calling them was a total waste of time. No one there knew anything about what happened," he said. He was able to get his service turned back on after about a week, but said he continues to get phone messages from Verizon that say, “they're discontinuing their old copper network, and they want to switch me to the new digital telephone service."

Keys delivers a consistent response: “I told them that I never want my copper to be removed, ever."

Customers will lose copper, and perhaps consumer protections

But the FCC is on course to let Verizon, AT&T, and other phone companies stop maintaining the old Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) by around 2020, eventually moving everyone to Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phone service. This shift could come with a loss of consumer protection rules such as price caps and "carrier of last resort" obligations to provide wireline phone service to anyone who asks for it. AT&T wants to substitute wireless for wired access in about 25 percent of its territory.

Verizon is getting a head start on the transition by retiring copper networks in favor of fiber ones. Customers moving from copper to fiber aren’t necessarily disconnected from the PSTN, because fiber can handle both the traditional circuit-switched phone network (also known as POTS, for Plain Old Telephone Service) and the new, largely unregulated VoIP phones.

Many customers do not understand that Verizon sells both regulated and unregulated phone service over fiber. Verizon insists that it is careful to explain the difference between POTS over fiber and VoIP.

"When we approach customers about switching to fiber for their telephone service, they often jump to the incorrect impression that we are trying to force them to FiOS," Bonomo said. "That is our responsibility that we communicate this clearly, and we want to make sure they understand they can get POTS over fiber, without necessarily getting our FiOS products. We are conscious about this, and we strive to make sure our customers understand the difference."

Customers who get VoIP over fiber today are not protected by the government-regulated prices that apply to traditional landlines, and they are not protected by rules that guarantee quality of service and prohibit slamming and cramming, Public Knowledge Senior Staff Attorney Jodie Griffin told Ars. Consumers' ability to petition state utility commissions for help in disputes against the phone companies is also limited if they have switched from a traditional landline to VoIP.

262 Reader Comments

Verizon doesn't want to build out fiber anymore. It would've a miracle if they were seeking to push people off of copper onto fiber. What they really want is to convert all their low margin copper users onto unregulated, extremely high margin wireless.

Yeah, they kept bugging me to go fiber. I finally just ditched the land line. At the end, all I ever received on it were calls from evil telemarketers, poll takers, charities of a dubious nature, random people speaking languages from the Far Lands, and, well, Verizon bugging me to go to fiber.

I do miss fucking with the telemarketers sometimes. But not that much.

The POTS (copper) phone system was carefully engineered by The Bell System (RIP) to be reliable and surviveable. No fancy fiber splice trucks needed, just a trained lineman with his tools could repair a downed line. And all the complex, (relatively) lower reliability stuff like switching computers and batteries were located at the central office, where they could be easily repaired.

The terminal units (telephones) are built like brick outhouses and were (up until touch tone) completely passive devices, with no transistors. Protected by surge arrestors, the Western Electric manufactured phones in your home were designed to last for decades without any maintenance at all.

Now, compare the above with cheaply made import phones, and 8-hour battery backup on the fiber interfaces. It almost makes me cry, thinking about what we had and what we are giving up. The linemen used to take pride in their work, now the poles in my neighborhood are covered with abandoned in place drop wires and sloppy wire management. Because the local companies are hiring contractors and pay by the job, so everything is done as quickly as possible and any reliability issues are the customer's problem.

When I got FIOS installed, they admitted in so many words that they were trying to force copper users off by any reasonable means, including not maintaining copper lines and installing fiber when they failed..

(Edit to add: that was many years ago now, and FIOS works well here since BGE finished protecting the lines.)

When I got FIOS installed, they admitted in so many words that they were trying to force copper users off by any reasonable means, including not maintaining copper lines and installing fiber when they failed..

if you have ever seen one of the old phone switches, you would know why

"It would be irresponsible for us to not offer a better technology to our customers."

Yes. Offer, but do not force someone to take it. Don't you get it, Mr. Yes-Man Flunky? People don't like to be told what's better for them. They want to decide for themselves, and that is entirely their choice.

Here's a thought: if you live in an area that frequently has long power outages, then you should probably pay for your own emergency power supply. I don't know why everyone else should be subsidizing maintenance and repair for outdated obsolete equipment so that people who live in hurricane zones can avoid having their own backup power.

Preparing for the safety and well-being of yourself and your family in an emergency is just being a responsible adult.

With the use of more DLC (digital loop carrier) the power isn't feed out from the CO but from the DLC. When the power goes out the DLC have a battery backup but once that runs out your phone lines are down. Until the phone company hooks a generator to it. So if you live in an area that is served by a DLC you are in a bit of the same boat as fiber users.

I have also seen pots over DSL. Where they have 2 wires coming into the network interface box and some kind of DSL interface in the box powered by the line. Then 6 pots lines coming out. While it is powered by the phone line I do wonder if the phone company keeps the dsl gear up as well when there is a power outage.

Here's a thought: if you live in an area that frequently has long power outages, then you should probably pay for your own emergency power supply. I don't know why everyone else should be subsidizing maintenance and repair for outdated obsolete equipment so that people who live in hurricane zones can avoid having their own backup power.

Preparing for the safety and well-being of yourself and your family in an emergency is just being a responsible adult.

And if they are poor/elderly/disabled and cannot afford to pay for an emergency generator, what do they do? Spend money they don't have moving to a more expensive area with better infrastructure?

Conventional landline service has enjoyed both a protected monopoly and a government-granted Universal Service subsidy for decades, for the sole purpose of providing a lifeline. Make no mistake, the former Bell companies, Verizon included, have profited from this arrangement. It gave them a stable stream of revenue that they used to finance their build-out of unregulated fiber services.

It's important to remember that Verizon isn't building out fiber anymore (it's only mobile getting built out now)...as they would much rather customer's get their data through mobile - which is orders of magnitude more expensive per GB...

This is also why all of these mega corp communication firms (AT&T as well) need to be shattered into their individual pieces (copper phone, fiber and wireless) - so that each piece/business can do the best for itself.

Here's a thought: if you live in an area that frequently has long power outages, then you should probably pay for your own emergency power supply. I don't know why everyone else should be subsidizing maintenance and repair for outdated obsolete equipment so that people who live in hurricane zones can avoid having their own backup power.

Preparing for the safety and well-being of yourself and your family in an emergency is just being a responsible adult.

And if they are poor/elderly/disabled and cannot afford to pay for an emergency generator, what do they do? Spend money they don't have moving to a more expensive area with better infrastructure?

Conventional landline service has enjoyed both a protected monopoly and a government-granted Universal Service subsidy for decades, for the sole purpose of providing a lifeline. Make no mistake, the former Bell companies, Verizon included, have profited from this arrangement. It gave them a stable stream of revenue that they used to finance their build-out of unregulated fiber services.

First, I really tire of "think of the [old people/children]" being trotted out for the emotional appeal. I highly doubt a whole wire area is populated by no one but people incapable of providing basic necessities for themselves. As for the portion that are in that situation - that's what a community is for. That's why the local school or town hall will have preparation for shelter, local hospitals and clinics have power and water supplies for emergencies. And why any decent neighbor walks over and checks on an elderly person in a time of crisis. If a fragile copper wire is all that stands between these people and tragedy, then there is a bigger problem than the phoneline.

Second, if the purpose of the article was to encourage the regulation of fiber (and other telecom infrastructure) I would be 100% behind it. Personally I think the federal government should be giving out grants and no-interest loans to municipalities to build out open access fiber networks to bring the nation into the 21st century, with requirements that local regulations are in place ensure consumer protections and reliable service.

However, this article just seems to harp on the fact that there's a push to get rid of expensive, legacy systems, which as far as I can tell the author seems to favor keeping around for very flimsy reasons. Those are two completely different articles.

Can't you just unplug your battery unless you need to make a call? In an emergency I would imagine a weather radio and outgoing voice service would be the most important things. 20 hours of talk time would last a long time for only outgoing.

Yes, I have to think I must be living in some bizarro alternate reality when I read these stories, one where Verizon has stopped building out its fiber network, making these stories totally unbelievable.

How much juice do these things need on the client side in need of a power outage? If you live in an area where this is a concern, could one rig up a solar solution? A treadmill connected to a generator? One of those hand crank things like a weather radio?

Seriously? I can't believe there's actually a significant number of people who actually oppose bandwidth orders of magnitude greater that currently because they'll lose the ability to make phone calls if the power goes out for more than 8 hours!

I wonder if these Luddites use power drills, or still stick to hand-cranked augers?Sure a power drill is far, far faster and easier, but without a reliable supply of electricity to recharge them, they're useless! No thanks - I'll keep my auger. /sarcasm

I do think the need to provide civil emergency communications with means that are independent from the main power grid on time scales much greater than 8 hours is still needed. But could this not be solve by some dedicated wireless spectrum (take it from TV, that is so very low priority that can go 100% over wired IP without issue) and low power voice devices with month-long batteries, solar panels, or hand cranks? Just because the Copper POTS network is an example of a working system, does not mean it is the only way to build one. It seems weird to be this worked up over 100 year old tech, regardless of how reliable and independently powered it is.

The linemen used to take pride in their work, now the poles in my neighborhood are covered with abandoned in place drop wires and sloppy wire management.

This seems to be happening across the board with craftsman professions.

No longer are you seen as a knowledgeable person within the field. Instead the MBAs running the company pretty much expect you to function as a industrial robot (or trained monkey if you will). All they care about are the number of units of output pr hours spent working. Anything else is secondary.

Seriously? I can't believe there's actually a significant number of people who actually oppose bandwidth orders of magnitude greater that currently because they'll lose the ability to make phone calls if the power goes out for more than 8 hours!

If one call can save lives, that one call is worth all the bandwidth in the world. Its as simple as that.

Here's a thought: if you live in an area that frequently has long power outages, then you should probably pay for your own emergency power supply. I don't know why everyone else should be subsidizing maintenance and repair for outdated obsolete equipment so that people who live in hurricane zones can avoid having their own backup power.

Preparing for the safety and well-being of yourself and your family in an emergency is just being a responsible adult.

And if they are poor/elderly/disabled and cannot afford to pay for an emergency generator, what do they do? Spend money they don't have moving to a more expensive area with better infrastructure?

Conventional landline service has enjoyed both a protected monopoly and a government-granted Universal Service subsidy for decades, for the sole purpose of providing a lifeline. Make no mistake, the former Bell companies, Verizon included, have profited from this arrangement. It gave them a stable stream of revenue that they used to finance their build-out of unregulated fiber services.

First, I really tire of "think of the [old people/children]" being trotted out for the emotional appeal. I highly doubt a whole wire area is populated by no one but people incapable of providing basic necessities for themselves. As for the portion that are in that situation - that's what a community is for. That's why the local school or town hall will have preparation for shelter, local hospitals and clinics have power and water supplies for emergencies. And why any decent neighbor walks over and checks on an elderly person in a time of crisis. If a fragile copper wire is all that stands between these people and tragedy, then there is a bigger problem than the phone line.

That's all well and good in the case of a major disaster, but it's of no help with ordinary medical emergencies, or even non-emergencies. "Just get a cell phone" may be an affordable solution, but there are plenty of areas, both rural and urban, where cell phones simply don't work.

Quote:

Second, if the purpose of the article was to encourage the regulation of fiber (and other telecom infrastructure) I would be 100% behind it. Personally I think the federal government should be giving out grants and no-interest loans to municipalities to build out open access fiber networks to bring the nation into the 21st century, with requirements that local regulations are in place ensure consumer protections and reliable service.

However, this article just seems to harp on the fact that there's a push to get rid of expensive, legacy systems, which as far as I can tell the author seems to favor keeping around for very flimsy reasons. Those are two completely different articles.

I can't speak to the author's intent, but it seems to be relating three main things: first, that Verizon (in particular) is neglecting copper landlines, second, the technical issues affecting the reliability of both fiber and copper, and third, the complete lack of action by the relevant regulatory authorities.

For what it's worth, this does seem to be a bigger problem with Verizon than any of the other telcos, probably because Verizon has sunk the most capital into its fiber build-out and is most anxious to see returns from it.

I agree that maintaining what is, in many cases, 25- to 50-year-old physical plant is untenable. But I think it's clear that neither the technological nor regulatory solutions needed to fully replace it are ready as of yet.

Here's a thought: if you live in an area that frequently has long power outages, then you should probably pay for your own emergency power supply. I don't know why everyone else should be subsidizing maintenance and repair for outdated obsolete equipment so that people who live in hurricane zones can avoid having their own backup power.

Preparing for the safety and well-being of yourself and your family in an emergency is just being a responsible adult.

And if they are poor/elderly/disabled and cannot afford to pay for an emergency generator, what do they do? Spend money they don't have moving to a more expensive area with better infrastructure?

Conventional landline service has enjoyed both a protected monopoly and a government-granted Universal Service subsidy for decades, for the sole purpose of providing a lifeline. Make no mistake, the former Bell companies, Verizon included, have profited from this arrangement. It gave them a stable stream of revenue that they used to finance their build-out of unregulated fiber services.

First, I really tire of "think of the [old people/children]" being trotted out for the emotional appeal. I highly doubt a whole wire area is populated by no one but people incapable of providing basic necessities for themselves. As for the portion that are in that situation - that's what a community is for. That's why the local school or town hall will have preparation for shelter, local hospitals and clinics have power and water supplies for emergencies. And why any decent neighbor walks over and checks on an elderly person in a time of crisis. If a fragile copper wire is all that stands between these people and tragedy, then there is a bigger problem than the phone line.

That's all well and good in the case of a major disaster, but it's of no help with ordinary medical emergencies, or even non-emergencies. "Just get a cell phone" may be an affordable solution, but there are plenty of areas, both rural and urban, where cell phones simply don't work.

Well the alternative being offered is POTS over fiber, not cell phones. If we're talking about ordinary medical emergencies or non-emergencies I see no reason to that POTSoF would be any less acceptable than copper.

This article basically describes what happened to my Mom. She had copper, then they continually degraded her line till there was really no choice but to hook up FiOS. Then Sandy came and I had to show her how to go to the basement turn on the "backup" power supply so she could call out if there was an emergency. It was absolutely ridiculous. There is no way that is acceptable as an emergency line during an power outage. So I bought her cheap mobile just for emergencies, she hates mobile phones lol.

I personally like FiOS, but I'd rather have copper telephone lines in emergencies especially for the older folks. If there is no power, and you have an emergency that immobilizes you, you are screwed if the land line is your only way to call out.

Is Verizon screwing their customers? Of course, it's what they do. But if you have legitimate concerns about being without power for 2 weeks, copper phone lines are not the solution. Power is necessary for more than just phones, and is the problem you should be trying to solve. Call Solarcity and get photovoltaics on your roof, there's no money up front, and at least in my area, it's cheaper than the local power company. Don't like, or can't get, solar panels? Then buy a generator, or even a plug-in hybrid car can power the essential items in a house. If you solve the power problem, fiber will work well enough, and you'll be able to have heat/ac and cook your food

Here's a thought: if you live in an area that frequently has long power outages, then you should probably pay for your own emergency power supply. I don't know why everyone else should be subsidizing maintenance and repair for outdated obsolete equipment so that people who live in hurricane zones can avoid having their own backup power.

Preparing for the safety and well-being of yourself and your family in an emergency is just being a responsible adult.

And if they are poor/elderly/disabled and cannot afford to pay for an emergency generator, what do they do? Spend money they don't have moving to a more expensive area with better infrastructure?

Conventional landline service has enjoyed both a protected monopoly and a government-granted Universal Service subsidy for decades, for the sole purpose of providing a lifeline. Make no mistake, the former Bell companies, Verizon included, have profited from this arrangement. It gave them a stable stream of revenue that they used to finance their build-out of unregulated fiber services.

First, I really tire of "think of the [old people/children]" being trotted out for the emotional appeal. I highly doubt a whole wire area is populated by no one but people incapable of providing basic necessities for themselves. As for the portion that are in that situation - that's what a community is for.

I agree completely that the community called the United States of America, acting through the FCC, should require that any sort of replacement for the PSTN, no matter what medium that data is carried over, should have reliability requirements, and time-of-service requirements far, far longer than 8 hours. Further, it's completely obvious that:a) the reliability of the communications network is seriously degraded when we rely on each endpoint of that network to provide their own power in case of an emergency (because plenty of people will either fail to prepare, or will prepare inappropriately).b) backup power generation is currently incredibly inefficient at small scales, and the efficiency grows substantially as scale increases

These three things (the value of a universal communications system, the detrimental effects of leaving emergency planning to individuals alone, and the economies of scale available WRT power generation and distribution) point obviously to the need for regulation of the fiber-based communications system, done in such a way that backup power may be provided for endpoints in a reasonable manner. Something like a power distribution network separate from the usual one, perhaps run along with the fiber bundles, maybe.

I'm also all for upgrading technologies, and not hanging onto legacy equipment, incidentally. I'm just aware of the staggering difference in capabilities between the CO-powered copper pair POTS gear out there, and the endpoint-powered fiber system being pushed in to replace it. Failures in communications networks are guaranteed to incur substantial costs in terms of EMS/Fire/Police/Rescue deployments, cause a few deaths here and there, and add greatly to the stress and worry of a bunch of people all over the country, every time there's a major disaster.

Maybe it's because I work for a telco that's currently rolling out fiber to replace copper (that's not Verizon, or even American), but I find a lot these objections pretty weak. You'll be able to find anecdotes going both ways - situations where fiber is the more reliable option, and situations where copper is - but if you want to convince me that POTS is more reliable in the real world, show me some actual numbers. My instinct, from actively supporting both, is that fiber is probably more reliable (and a significant fraction of troubles on our fiber services are still from the copper wiring in the building), but it's close enough I wouldn't put a lot of money on that. I would hope Ars could do a better job than this - it's easy to get half a dozen sob stories about anything in a country with ~300 million residents. Show some actual data to back up your position, as I'd love to see what actually does better in the wild (and I'm not in a position to see my employer's internal data on that).

Incidentally, anyone relying on a POTS line, or anything else, for mission/life critical services has already screwed up IMO. Reliability is pretty damn good, but it's not and can't ever be perfect, and it does become substantially worse in the conditions you'll likely most need it - bad weather, natural distastes, and the like. If you absolutely, 100% must have working communications at all times, you need to have a backup plan. What form that takes is your own risk management exercise, but ANY single point of failure is eventually going to fail.

This situation is sort of unusual, with the same company being responsible for both the new fiber network and the old copper one (not to mention the fact that Verizon is a company everyone loves to hate). I have to wonder if this weren't the case, and rather than being one and the same it was some upstart company driving the old PSTN out of business would Ars still be calling for the upstart to subsidize the old technology?

Is Verizon screwing their customers? Of course, it's what they do. But if you have legitimate concerns about being without power for 2 weeks, copper phone lines are not the solution. Power is necessary for more than just phones, and is the problem you should be trying to solve. Call Solarcity and get photovoltaics on your roof, there's no money up front, and at least in my area, it's cheaper than the local power company. Don't like, or can't get, solar panels? Then buy a generator, or even a plug-in hybrid car can power the essential items in a house. If you solve the power problem, fiber will work well enough, and you'll be able to have heat/ac and cook your food

Why don't you tell people just to move to places where disasters don't happen? At least that suggestion has the pretense of plausibility. Instead, you propose solar panels (how nice, except when they're covered by a couple of feet of snow, as happens routinely in some parts of the USA), a home generator (incurring substantial dead losses to the overall economy due to loss of economies of scale versus larger centrally-located and -maintained units), or a plug-in hybrid.

Rugged individualism is all well and good, but there are very real benefits to mandating centralized backup services, and complaints about power are not trivial ones.

OK, I actually registered for an account just so I could post a comment on this article.

When I was in college (this was in '99) I took a class on telecommunications policy and regulations. (Yes, I was that nerdy that I found reading 200 page regulatory filings to be fascinating). It was shortly after the Telecommunications Act of 1996 had passed, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommun ... ct_of_1996) and there was a ton of new regulation being written and a lot of questions about how huge changes in both the market and the legal landscape would affect the industry.

Mind you, when the law was passed the state of the market and technology was way different than it is now. At that time, Regional Bell Operating Carriers (like Bell Atlantic) weren't even allowed to offer long distance service - that was finally just being opened up. DSL was state-of-the-art. Pagers were ubiquitous, and mobile phones only existed in cars. People got email through dial-up service on AOL. So the POTS was still the foundation for almost all telecommunications in the country.

The engineers who designed the POTS were obsessed with reliability. Most of the network had been built out during the Cold War, so having a communications system that could be relied upon to work in the event of a war was a serious consideration and design requirement. Given that the system was designed by a monopoly (AT&T) allowed the engineers to design a holistic solution where they controlled everything from the phone on your desk to the switching stations in between.

I was fortunate enough that our professor was well respected within the industry and we were able to visit inside a Central Office (CO), where all the local phone lines for a neighborhood come in. (This was before 9/11 - I highly doubt he would have been able to get us access today).

The tour of the facility was fascinating and extremely impressive from an engineering perspective. There were 3 floors and a basement. Each floor had a dedicated purpose. The most impressive was the basement, which was solely focused on power.

The power system at your central office for your landline (assuming you still have one) is triply-redundant. Yes, triple.

1. The station is powered by 2 different electrical substations running at 50% capacity with a cross-over breaker. If either substation goes offline, the building is switched over to the fallover substation with no interruption.

2. Assuming both substations go offline, the building had 2 diesel generators that could power the entire building and enough fuel to run for at least 2 months. They spun up the generators once a month and powered the building for several hours to ensure they were reliable. (They actually warned us before we entered that if the alarm sounded we needed to get out of the room ASAP because the noise in the room approached 120 decibels).

3. Assuming both of those systems failed, the entire basement was composed almost entirely of nickel-cadmium batteries that were approximately 3 feet tall and about a foot in diameter. These were stacked across the floor and on shelves 3 high. They consumed almost the entire floor, and some had been running continuously for 40+ years. In the event of a complete catastrophic power loss, the batteries could run the building (and consequently all of the phone lines connected to it) for 3 days.

The fascinating part was that in reality the batteries were actually powering the POTS network the whole time. The substations and generators were simply constantly recharging the batteries, which were what ended up powering the POTS through low voltage DC current.

The engineer giving us the tour said that their goal was that your phone line had reliability equivalent to only 30 seconds of downtime for every year of service (not counting external factors like a treetaking out a telephone pole). I tried doing the math but I can't figure out how many 9s of reliability that is.

The rest of the building, as you worked your way up, focused on local landline connection termination (1st floor), long distance switching (2nd floor), and Internet service (3rd floor, almost empty at the time).

I think most people here who have grown up on VOIP or wireless haven't considered the reality that in the event of a regional (or national) emergency, having a workable communications system is an absolute *necessity*. If you can't communicate, you can't accomplish anything. This isn't the problem of a tree falling in your neighborhood and you are without service for a couple of hours. That's an inconvenience. I'm talking Hurricane Sandy type disasters, where you may go days or weeks without power. If you can't contact your loved ones, or government agencies and relief organizations can't coordinate, you can't get anything done.

For those of you who say you can just get a battery backup for your own home, keep in mind that does you no good if the rest of the network is down. A communications system is only useful if you can connect to every other endpoint on the network. If you have power but no one else does, you have a well powered and expensive paperweight (assuming you still have paper). To that point, if your phone has power but the switching station does not, or the cell towers in half the city are down, you still aren't able to communicate with anyone else. And that doesn't even get close to the problem of long-distance connections.

For those who say this should be accommodated for those in "high risk" areas - what is high risk? Until Hurricane Sandy, I don't think most people would have considered NYC high risk for a disaster. How about San Francisco when the next earthquake hits? Cellular does you no good if the towers have no power. Fiber is the same.

I'm not being a Luddite and saying we should cling to our copper wires forever. But I feel many younger (I'm guessing) readers haven't ever experienced prolonged outages of critical services (electricity, water, communications, etc.). We've gotten so accustomed to always-on, always-available communication services that we've lost the ability to even consider a disaster response plan of how we could manage in a calamity. We've also been fortunate that we haven't had a serious strategic military threat against us in decades (although terrorism might be a good one to consider). Both of these factors have (IMHO) caused us to become complacent against good disaster planning when it comes to a communications infrastructure.

Yes, clearly the future is in broadband and technologies such as fiber. However, don't just throw away the extremely important factor of reliability and dependability when it comes to communications. People in some areas have legitimate concerns when it comes to the reliability of their telephone system, and as a society, we need to make sure we have considered the risks of catastrophic failure to portions of our infrastructure that we can withstand and still function effectively at a governmental and societal level.

The POTS (copper) phone system was carefully engineered by The Bell System (RIP) to be reliable and surviveable. No fancy fiber splice trucks needed, just a trained lineman with his tools could repair a downed line. And all the complex, (relatively) lower reliability stuff like switching computers and batteries were located at the central office, where they could be easily repaired.

The terminal units (telephones) are built like brick outhouses and were (up until touch tone) completely passive devices, with no transistors. Protected by surge arrestors, the Western Electric manufactured phones in your home were designed to last for decades without any maintenance at all.

Now, compare the above with cheaply made import phones, and 8-hour battery backup on the fiber interfaces. It almost makes me cry, thinking about what we had and what we are giving up. The linemen used to take pride in their work, now the poles in my neighborhood are covered with abandoned in place drop wires and sloppy wire management. Because the local companies are hiring contractors and pay by the job, so everything is done as quickly as possible and any reliability issues are the customer's problem.

Yep. Breaking up monopolies is a good thing as a general rule, but there are exceptions to rules.

The flip side was that we paid dearly for that reliability. Try talking to somebody born after the 1996 Telecom Act. The concept of paying extra for long distance calls, especially when long distance could mean people in the same area code, and they'll look at you like you sprouted a third eye.

The flip-flip side is, there was a time when working for Ma Bell was a fantastic career. Not a job, a decades long career.

On the whole, our current paradigm is better, but it's instructive to remember what we traded for it.

Seriously? I can't believe there's actually a significant number of people who actually oppose bandwidth orders of magnitude greater that currently because they'll lose the ability to make phone calls if the power goes out for more than 8 hours!

I wonder if these Luddites use power drills, or still stick to hand-cranked augers?Sure a power drill is far, far faster and easier, but without a reliable supply of electricity to recharge them, they're useless! No thanks - I'll keep my auger.

I have three braces, and two sets of auger bits (one set of Jennings pattern and one set of Irwin pattern) that I use on a regular basis. With well sharpened bits and a long swing brace, I can drill a heck of a lot of large diameter holes with minimal effort where my cordless drill would run out of juice long before I do.

Here's a thought: if you live in an area that frequently has long power outages, then you should probably pay for your own emergency power supply. I don't know why everyone else should be subsidizing maintenance and repair for outdated obsolete equipment so that people who live in hurricane zones can avoid having their own backup power.

Preparing for the safety and well-being of yourself and your family in an emergency is just being a responsible adult.

And if they are poor/elderly/disabled and cannot afford to pay for an emergency generator, what do they do? Spend money they don't have moving to a more expensive area with better infrastructure?

...

They depend on family and neighbors.

Somehow a faceless entity is now the go-to solution for help instead of the people who are in the perfect position to help those in need. It will never work as well. If it did, we wouldn't be having these discussions.